On a whimp, I bought a few of these power cables from Amazon for a rather cheap price - about $48 each depending on the length. First, I am not affiliated in any way with this online vendor. I don't have nothing to do with it. I don't make any money from it. I included the link below.
Amazon.com: WAudio Hi-End Hifi Audio AC Power Cable Power Cord US Plug - 6.6FT (2M): Home Audio & Theater
Before getting into any technical details, I want to describe the difference in the sound and at the end, I just want to make a stab at why just a few feet of cable can make a difference.
The first time I had an experience where a power can make a difference when I was using my trusty Arcam cd23 with just some cheap power cables I just had laying around. I then was cleaning up and rearrange my system and after that I just randomly swap out the cable for another. The previous cable was slightly thinner than the cable I had just swapped in but other than that, they essentially looked the same. I never expected any difference but to my surprise, especially on large scale orchestra, there was definitely more weight on the low end. The music was better organized and so on. That was like a year ago, but only recently I thought I bought a few of these to try
out for fun.
So with these cables, in term of construction, they are like some big water hoses. But any way, as for the sound, there is a huge jump in the bass, and I mean "HUGE". I felt like I had my subwoofer on. The sound is more stable, less edgy. The sound is better damped I think, less overhang. The bass is tauter and less boomy. You can hear more into the soundstage and so on and on ... Is there any downside? I don't know. I mentioned "better damped", but may be a bit "over damped"? The sound is a bit leaner especially in the midrage. It could be my setup. Since there are more bass now, I had to pull my speakers a bit further from the wall so the sound balance is now different than before. Maybe I have to retune my speakers to match the new power cables. Maybe I have to lift the 1khz - 3khz range a bit. There is slightly less treble but maybe because there is more bass so subjectively you hear less treble. Again it might be a matter of retuning my speakers. I guess my recommendation is at least you give these a try since they are rather cheap, you won't loose too much money if it doesn't work out.
I was looking around in Amazon and found the PS audio power cables being sold for $400. It claims to improve transient response. Hm... now I think of it the cheap one I bought does lack a bit of transient. I guess that's what 400 can buy. The PS cable seems to have a much more sophisticated construction with multi-strand filaments and what looks to be some fancy dielectric too. The one I bought seems to have a rather simple 3 wire constructions of 10AWG gauge. Probably no fancy dielectric.
Amazon.com: PS Audio PerfectWave AC-5, 10-Gauge Power Cable, 2.0M (6.6FT) - 15 AMP IEC: Home Audio & Theater
Now the hard part, so how can we explain? Why can just a few feet of cable make such a difference? I mean the electrical current has travel literally hundred of miles before getting to your house then how in the world can the last 3ft or so can make any difference. Before going further, let's take a step backward and talk about how we sometimes making analogy to a electrical current. Most student early in their classes learnt that electrical is like water. I mean the analogy is useful but obviously it would't work in this case for obvious reason - even with a bad power supply cable, there are plenty
of electrons so it's not like the reason is a good power cable can supply more electrons - like water. So most students would find out soon that he or she
need to have a more advance analogy to understand electricity. Based on experience, basically there is really no one single analogy that will fit all situations. You sort of have to find different analogies for different situation depending how you feel comfortable with it. With all the advance, there are still a lot of things in electrical current we still don't have a firm grasp.
For this case, one explanation I can find it something call "power factor" in power supply designs. What you want is to have more "capacitive power factor", less inductive. I am not a power supply designer so I don't know the detail. It's possible a lot of these audiophile power cables help to improve the power factor of the power supplies to make it more stable. Interestingly enough, my guess is a well designed power supply, the less it is susceptible
to bad power cables.
Amazon.com: WAudio Hi-End Hifi Audio AC Power Cable Power Cord US Plug - 6.6FT (2M): Home Audio & Theater
Before getting into any technical details, I want to describe the difference in the sound and at the end, I just want to make a stab at why just a few feet of cable can make a difference.
The first time I had an experience where a power can make a difference when I was using my trusty Arcam cd23 with just some cheap power cables I just had laying around. I then was cleaning up and rearrange my system and after that I just randomly swap out the cable for another. The previous cable was slightly thinner than the cable I had just swapped in but other than that, they essentially looked the same. I never expected any difference but to my surprise, especially on large scale orchestra, there was definitely more weight on the low end. The music was better organized and so on. That was like a year ago, but only recently I thought I bought a few of these to try
out for fun.
So with these cables, in term of construction, they are like some big water hoses. But any way, as for the sound, there is a huge jump in the bass, and I mean "HUGE". I felt like I had my subwoofer on. The sound is more stable, less edgy. The sound is better damped I think, less overhang. The bass is tauter and less boomy. You can hear more into the soundstage and so on and on ... Is there any downside? I don't know. I mentioned "better damped", but may be a bit "over damped"? The sound is a bit leaner especially in the midrage. It could be my setup. Since there are more bass now, I had to pull my speakers a bit further from the wall so the sound balance is now different than before. Maybe I have to retune my speakers to match the new power cables. Maybe I have to lift the 1khz - 3khz range a bit. There is slightly less treble but maybe because there is more bass so subjectively you hear less treble. Again it might be a matter of retuning my speakers. I guess my recommendation is at least you give these a try since they are rather cheap, you won't loose too much money if it doesn't work out.
I was looking around in Amazon and found the PS audio power cables being sold for $400. It claims to improve transient response. Hm... now I think of it the cheap one I bought does lack a bit of transient. I guess that's what 400 can buy. The PS cable seems to have a much more sophisticated construction with multi-strand filaments and what looks to be some fancy dielectric too. The one I bought seems to have a rather simple 3 wire constructions of 10AWG gauge. Probably no fancy dielectric.
Amazon.com: PS Audio PerfectWave AC-5, 10-Gauge Power Cable, 2.0M (6.6FT) - 15 AMP IEC: Home Audio & Theater
Now the hard part, so how can we explain? Why can just a few feet of cable make such a difference? I mean the electrical current has travel literally hundred of miles before getting to your house then how in the world can the last 3ft or so can make any difference. Before going further, let's take a step backward and talk about how we sometimes making analogy to a electrical current. Most student early in their classes learnt that electrical is like water. I mean the analogy is useful but obviously it would't work in this case for obvious reason - even with a bad power supply cable, there are plenty
of electrons so it's not like the reason is a good power cable can supply more electrons - like water. So most students would find out soon that he or she
need to have a more advance analogy to understand electricity. Based on experience, basically there is really no one single analogy that will fit all situations. You sort of have to find different analogies for different situation depending how you feel comfortable with it. With all the advance, there are still a lot of things in electrical current we still don't have a firm grasp.
For this case, one explanation I can find it something call "power factor" in power supply designs. What you want is to have more "capacitive power factor", less inductive. I am not a power supply designer so I don't know the detail. It's possible a lot of these audiophile power cables help to improve the power factor of the power supplies to make it more stable. Interestingly enough, my guess is a well designed power supply, the less it is susceptible
to bad power cables.
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I believe You are experiencing the Placebo effect.
Your brain is expecting better sound, and it fools Your ears.
There could be also a capacitive effect or coil effect somehow affecting Your circuits depending how the cable is made. You know, higher gauge and less resistance leads to higher electron-flow
Just my two cents.
Your brain is expecting better sound, and it fools Your ears.
There could be also a capacitive effect or coil effect somehow affecting Your circuits depending how the cable is made. You know, higher gauge and less resistance leads to higher electron-flow
Just my two cents.
That didn't take long lols. There are too many of these garbage in the world unfortunately.
Cable believers get around this by arguing that, rather than being the last 3ft the equipment sees, it is the first 3ft it sees!
Currently, I'm shaking my head at an advert for a power cable which is 'optimised for performance by length'.
The justification given is that after testing 15 different lengths of cable they found that 1.7 metre power cable sounds better than any other length.
Any other length?
What do you do if your equipment is more than 1.7m from the power outlet?
Give me strength!
Curious, you say you bought a few of them. On what item did it make the most difference? Power amp, pre, front end... I read a Stereophile review on a very expensive power cable (audioquest dragon source 3400$/meter) and of course they gave him enough to do his whole system. Not very useful in finding out where it makes the most impact... any observations on your system?
I agree, professional pictures and 3d images by experienced graphical artists can be expensive and drive up the cost
Guys -an observation:
Beware this thread. You are being baited into a worthless debate by an OP who makes a practice of this kind of thing. 6 months or so ago, he was whiling away his time in a thread essentially trying to claim AC is not alternating, that all electrical circuits are created based on Spice models (including those that were created before electronic computers even existed), and that a given loudspeaker crossover will behave differently if a series component were placed in the nominal positive or negative leg (no changes to electrical component order, and independent of external influences e.g. mutual inductance interactions which is a matter of board layout / component configuration rather than the electrical topology of the circuit). No support, no evidence (hardly surprising in the circumstances), just hand-waving twaddle and a rapid exit when pressed for his claimed evidence, with the parting comment 'I prefer porn'.
More recently (only a few days ago) was a thread he started on USB cables, which when he had provoked the reactions he wanted, refusing to support his claims and insulting those who actually did provide technical data, he departed calling other members 'children' and that he was moving on to 'bigger and better things'. The ridiculous thread was closed by the mod team afterward, since there was little purpose in letting the troll get further satisfaction.
Here, we are seeing the early stages of the same modus operandi. We will doubtless witness (paraphrasing only slightly) variations on the following themes / phrases if this thread is allowed to continue:
-'I've... read some books [titles unspecified] & it's too complex to explain'
-'I think'
-'I believe'
-'You need to prove [despite being the one making claims -a favoured inversion of this type of troll on-line, in print or in debate]'
Do yourselves a favour: don't fall for it. Do not post here. Do not let the troll get the satisfaction of causing trouble by deliberately provoking and stoking acrimony. Let this thread die now before the drivel goes further.
Beware this thread. You are being baited into a worthless debate by an OP who makes a practice of this kind of thing. 6 months or so ago, he was whiling away his time in a thread essentially trying to claim AC is not alternating, that all electrical circuits are created based on Spice models (including those that were created before electronic computers even existed), and that a given loudspeaker crossover will behave differently if a series component were placed in the nominal positive or negative leg (no changes to electrical component order, and independent of external influences e.g. mutual inductance interactions which is a matter of board layout / component configuration rather than the electrical topology of the circuit). No support, no evidence (hardly surprising in the circumstances), just hand-waving twaddle and a rapid exit when pressed for his claimed evidence, with the parting comment 'I prefer porn'.
More recently (only a few days ago) was a thread he started on USB cables, which when he had provoked the reactions he wanted, refusing to support his claims and insulting those who actually did provide technical data, he departed calling other members 'children' and that he was moving on to 'bigger and better things'. The ridiculous thread was closed by the mod team afterward, since there was little purpose in letting the troll get further satisfaction.
Here, we are seeing the early stages of the same modus operandi. We will doubtless witness (paraphrasing only slightly) variations on the following themes / phrases if this thread is allowed to continue:
-'I've... read some books [titles unspecified] & it's too complex to explain'
-'I think'
-'I believe'
-'You need to prove [despite being the one making claims -a favoured inversion of this type of troll on-line, in print or in debate]'
Do yourselves a favour: don't fall for it. Do not post here. Do not let the troll get the satisfaction of causing trouble by deliberately provoking and stoking acrimony. Let this thread die now before the drivel goes further.
When your trying to sell snake oil, the more confusion the better. Or, if it dosnt make a difference make it hard to compare. The OP obviously knows nothing about electricity.
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The water model of electricity is indeed useful and is basically sound.
The analogy of voltage is water pressure.
The analogy of current is rate of water flow.
The analogy of resistance is water pipe diameter. (The thinner the pipe the greater the resistance to flow and the lower the rate of flow for a given water pressure).
Hence a thick power cable is capable of supplying more electrons per second than a thin cable, but only if called upon to do so by the equipment it is powering.
However, I agree that the water model falters when we look for the analogies of electrical quantities such as cable inductance and capacitance
I bought various length since they are so cheap - 3ft, 1.5m, and 2m. They have similar sound signature regardless of whether they are used in either CD, preamp, or power amplifier. The bass is very prominent and most apparent when all of the components are replaced with the new power cables. The sound now is very authoritative, but I do miss the sweetness and delicacy of the old plain power cables. They do change the sound character with the extra added bass and low freq.
Have you seen the fuse in your power amplifier? The owner of YBA claims that the fuse does make a difference in the sound. Hm... I'd like to see what fuses he uses in his component.
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Wrong.
Both can carry the exact same electrons per second, just put them in series and see, *all* which go through one, will go through the other.
Only difference is that the thicker one will drop a little less voltage per unit of length, but that´s a different thing.
Given the, likely, many metres of installation cable that sit between the wall outlet and the property's main fuse/circuit breaker box it's hard to reason how this expensive cable can make the slightest difference at the current that devices such as CD players draw.
Before purchasing such an amazing cable I'd first be inclined to effectively reduce the device's 'power cable' length to zero by using installation cable between the device's power input connector and the wall outlet instead. Surely that would be a cheaper solution.
Before purchasing such an amazing cable I'd first be inclined to effectively reduce the device's 'power cable' length to zero by using installation cable between the device's power input connector and the wall outlet instead. Surely that would be a cheaper solution.
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